Never Again
by TheXEnigma
Summary: She saved him from a bullet. He bought her a drink. Things can only get better from here. *Absent from FFN for almost a year, with sincere apologies. I will be comtinuing to post this story soon!*
1. Prologue: Junior Varsity my ass

Title: Never Again

Disclaimer: I do not own Human Target. Dammit.

Authors Note: I have only just re-started my foray into the world of writing Fan Fiction. Constructive criticism would be much appreciated. Blind and absolute worship of my work much more so. And since it appears that the ship that I will be shipping in Human Target to the highest degree of ship that I can possible manage is rather unpopular, I can only say that chemistry is chemistry and that I am completely happy for you to leave flames detailing your dislike of my featured couple. I will understand. I hear that being in denial is a total bitch. That said, please enjoy...

Prologue

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As she desperately fought for consciousness, fighting back waves of nausea and the prickling of tears behind her eyes that threatened to erupt into equally desperate sobs, Ames painfully kept the semi-automatic trained to the furthest seat of the darkened limousine. Ignoring the persistent hum of the traffic outside and the slivers of neon lights that briefly managed chase away the gloom in the cars' interior, she grimaced as shudders began to wrack her already overwrought body. _God it hurt_. But that was just fricking irony at its best. Trapped in a world of poverty, fear, loneliness and the joke that was the American foster system- she had first learnt to steal for such little glimpses into the life of luxury. Gleaming trinkets in a dirty world she had been born to exploit.

"_No safe I can't crack. No wallet I can't lift."_

Now Ames was slumping in the back of the most luxurious model of transport ever made, bought or stolen, while she bled out in Versace. A cruel testament from the universe and where it deemed her place should be. As her teeth began to chatter and the hand she had pressed vainly to her abdomen slipped, she idly began to speculate on how one would even begin to remove blood stains from silk... But as beads of sweat and exhaustion intermingled with droplets of blood, she felt her body begin its inevitable sink downward. A wave of gray enveloped her vision, the arm holding her last defence faltered, and she felt rather then saw the passengers move to strike. Their confidence in her flagging condition obviously overrode their fears at her previously venomous hiss for them to sit down and shut the fuck up.

The scent of copper and expensive leather filled her nostrils and the supple seat cushions rose disturbingly quickly to meet her face. Drawing on her last reserves of pure adrenalin, Ames swallowed past the literally gut-wrenching pain and was rewarded with the satisfying, if not almost effectively posthumous, sound of gunshots. She chuckled darkly at the outraged squeals of tyres, the sick thump of her bullets erupting into flesh and the vaguely rewarding sound of shattering glass. She braced herself as momentum forced her body toppling onto the carpeted flooring. Even as she felt the spray of what she could only vindictively hope was arterial blood splatter, excruciating pain burst in a brilliant white behind her eyelids and she frantically bit her bottom lip to muffle screams of agony. Sheer grit was now a futile shield against oblivion. Doors were flung open and the cacophony of harried conversation and the outside world blasted into her reality, before a single bitter thought swirled through Ames as she slowly faded away to black.

_...Junior Varsity my ass_...

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R & R. Please and Thank You.

"_I don't care what you think, as long as it's about me_" F.O.B


	2. Chapter One: Oh Bite Me

Title: Never Again

Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target- sometimes I just play with it a little.

Authors Note: Thank you very much to all who reviewed my last chapter. Needless to say I have been greatly enjoying the warm and gooey feelings they give me. I also appreciated the input. Yes, I completely agree that Ames seems much grittier in the prologue- but for good reason, as will be revealed. And I completely agree that it was fairly wordy and rather 'flowery/purple' (hehe love it), but I believe that will be resolved when dialogue and character interaction begin to balance out the chapters. So thanks again and onwards with the... do we have a name for the love-fest that is Ames/Guerrero? Auerrero? *Shrugs* Then for now- let the 'Games' begin. :D

**Authors Note Two: Due to my own carelessness I uploaded a draft of the chapter, rather than the final product you now see below. My bad people! So if you had read Chapter One previous to the 08.02.11, I'm very sorry. Enjoy chapter one, for the second time?**

CHAPTER ONE

"Oh, Bite Me!"

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**48 Hours Earlier**

The office was silent, an absolutely deathly quiet. The world itself was waiting with baited breath. Longing to stay invisible, an entire planet was standing frozen. Hoping that if it was lucky, that it could eventually go back to turning and passing time as it always had. Brown eyes were locked with brown eyes, and her defiant whisper was met with indifferent, calculating silence.

"You won't break me."

It was a matter of pride, principle and life itself. Neither could afford to look away. Yet as the minutes dragged slowly past, the absolute stillness began to grate. All silences did for her eventually. She felt her gaze begin to waver. Her muscles were beginning to protest at the cramped position she had been forced into. Horror began to well up in her stomach as her nose twitched. A stray breeze drifted past, secreting away with the scent of Mrs. Puccis' dahlias. She could have missed the triumph that danced behind that merciless stare, but she hadn't.

"Shit!"

Ames swore as the sneeze exploded out of her reluctant body. In the deserted office, it held all the subtlety of a gunshot. Cursing her unruly body, she pulled back from the conference table. Propped up with her knees on the chair, and carefully favouring her left side Ames pouted grumpily. She was forced to look on enviously as Carmine attacked the last powdered donut. Ames' surrender had been all the permission Carmine had needed to propel onto the plate sitting on the table. Ames rolled her eyes, huffing, and looked away. Carmine sat back in the chair across from her own, a happy doggy grin rubbing salt in the face of Ames' failure. That, or it was the sight of the delicious powdered goodness wasted on the smug pug nose, that prompted a somewhat belligerent, "Oh, bite me."

Ames watched as Carmine jumped from the chair and toddled out of the room. Heading upstairs to sleep no doubt, rather than gratefully sit with the woman who had scrounged for that one last treat. Ames sighed heavily and resigned herself to both loneliness and the rumbling of her stomach. Once more flipping open her phone, Ames propped her long denim-clad legs onto the table and reclined back into the chair. _Nothing_. Nadda, zilp, zip and squat. Flicking it closed she aimlessly tossed the phone onto the table, and tilted her head to look out the window. For a large city it was rather quiet. But at 2:00 am she really wasn't that surprised. At this time of morning, you really had to be in the right place to find some action. She frowned musingly, or was it you had to be in the wrong place...With the mindless strumming of her fingers against the glass tabletop she had reached her decision. She really didn't give a shit.

"That's it! I'm so out!"

Slamming her feet to the ground and grabbing her phone, Ames stomped out of the conference room. She deliberately left all the lights on. But the vindictive thought of Mrs. Pucci receiving a slightly larger electricity bill this month did little to make up for the fact that the team had abandoned her. That, and the complete lack of food, completely justified the flow of obscenities that trailed in her wake as she continued towards the elevator. This was the last straw. The events that had led up to this moment, ending with the humiliating staring contest with a fricking Rottweiler, had left her sore, cranky and more than a little tired. Too peeved with the rest of the team to admit she was worried, Ames dealt by becoming a little more pissed off. As she reached to push for the elevator and her stream of swearing reached an impressive decibel, the doors gave an innocent ding and slid open to reveal the rest of her team. Dishevelled, a little bruised and openly laughing.

"...son of a fucking bitch!"

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If she hadn't been so irked at the sight of them, (_irked not relieved!_), she would have ordinarily found their abrupt silence amusing. Chance quickly reached out to hold the doors open. Mrs. Pucci guiltily cleared her throat as Ames crossed her arms and glared. Ignoring the throbbing twinge of her ribs, Ames took note of the cuts on Chances' knuckles, the discreet band aid on the graceful billionaires head and the split in Winstons' bottom lip. It didn't take a genius to read between the lines. They had taken on a job.

No.

They had taken a job, _without her._

So pushing past the hurt and neglect that radiated sickly through her stomach, Ames pointed out the elephant in the elevator and beat it over their goddamn heads. Overriding Wintons' stilted greeting and Mrs. Puccis' polite good morning, her rather impolite and obviously loaded question had Chance running a nervous hand across the back of his head and down his neck, all three avoiding her gaze.

"How was the mission you took without me?"

Ames half-heartedly hoped that they hadn't heard her real question. That they hadn't noticed the self-conscious and quietly pleading, "Why did you take a mission _without me_?" buried beneath her lofty indignation. Because she wasn't entirely sure that she wanted the blunt truth. They had broken her bravado once already.

"_Ok, you know what? I'm actually scared..."_

It was something Ames had learnt a long time ago. Anger was excellent at covering soul deep insecurities. Never let them see you cry. So she scowled a little harder.

Avoiding her narrowed eyes, it appeared for an instant that rather than answer Chance would just let the doors close. That was until a mocking snort drifted over from the far corner of the elevator. A soft but disbelieving, "Dude," filled the need. And just like that, her righteous anger fled before a wave of her embarrassing uncertainties. Followed quickly, by the even more humiliating need for approval of any kind...

_Guerrero_.

That was all it took. The sway her annoyance had held over the team was lost at his pointed expression. It implied that much like a misbehaving toddler, she was at best ignored. At worst, that Ames was not to be taken seriously in her frustration. She watched wordlessly as he swung his bag over his shoulder and with a slight eye roll towards the other three, who were still standing reluctantly in the elevator, sauntered out. Without a second look he brushed passed her, Ames couldn't bring herself to move out of his way. Guerrero continued down the hall, tossing his reply to her dramatically rhetorical question as he went.

"It went really well." _Without you..._

Momentarily subdued at the wonderfully wordless dig, Ames moved aside as Winston, Chance and finally Mrs. Pucci followed behind him. The light reconciling touch Ilsa laid on her arm did nothing to soothe her nerve endings, electrified at the brief touch of _his_ skin to her own.

_Guerrero_.

All her life she had prided herself on her abilities to perform. Cheat with tears, steal with sympathy and hit pay dirt with quickly spun lies and even quicker hands. But right now, Ames could only pray that no one had looked too closely at her face. Standing in the wake of his touch and her dangerously edgy emotions, today she could only hope that she looked as unflappable as Guerrero. On a good day, it was difficult to remain nonchalant when his presence made her tremble and his touch made her blood race and his eyes... _Oh god what those eyes could do to a woman_. When she was teetering on a high wire of tangled feelings, and haunted by the inevitable fall, just the thought of his name sent a deep, primal thrum through her body.

_Guerrero_.

Suppressing the trills of pure energy that raced through her system and ignoring the desperate ache Guerrero left her in...Ames exhaled brokenly and tried to hear past the heartbeat pounding in her ears. Since the moment they had first really met, jarred awake to the sight of his laser-like focus and his soft threats, something in Ames had clicked. Now it was only _most_ of the time that she wished he _had_ tortured her. Maybe he would have broken whatever it was that kept her reeling back into his path. Because lately it was all she could do to brush herself off, even as he brushed past.

Turning around and heading back to the conference room, she forced her natural exuberance to the surface and with an insolent toss of her ponytail, entered the room with her head held high. _Well high-ish. Broken ribs really caned..._

And so what if she felt that the room held more appeal now, then twenty minutes ago. Who could blame her? Mrs. Pucci had ordered breakfast...

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As her yawn contributed to the subdued discussions floating around the conference room, Ames cautiously flexed her arms and half-heartedly eyed the massacred takeout bags that Mrs. Pucci had delivered for the hungry team. A single bagel was crying out its lonely existence. So in a merciful attempt to ease its suffering, Ames delicately reached out. She decided that for the sake of lonesome bagels everywhere, she would run the extra mile to work it off. Well, walk the extra mile now anyway. But when a large and delightfully calloused hand scooped up her bagel, Ames could only watch helplessly as it was stuffed into a mouth that denied her the chance in one rather unscrupulous bite.

_Guerrero_.

Ames straightened. She despised the fact that he could light up her body like a Christmas tree. She despised the way she knew exactly how his body flowed. She despised the way his mouth twisted in that cruelly all knowing male smirk. More importantly, Ames despised the fact he had no idea what he did to her. _Because he didn't care_. Caution and reason retreated before her insulted ego and battered feelings. The damned unfairness of the entire morning came flooding back and her eyes narrowed.

"You leave me here alone. You traipse off on a mission with no word and certainty not enough courtesy to give me a heads up. Hell, not even a single fricking post-it-note and then you eat my bagel?"

Guerrero swallowed calmly, shrugged of a crumb carelessly and replied with a cuttingly indifferent, "So?" before casually returning to his conversation with Chance. Ames felt her hands clench unwittingly as Guerrero pointedly turned away, and a vulnerable shadow flitted behind her eyes before outraged sputters erupted from her mouth.

"So? You have got to be kidding me? After everything you lot put me through last night all you can say is; So! I can't believe..."

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Tuning out Ames' bagel inspired rant, Chance sighed internally as he saw Guerreros' expression begin to furrow darkly. It would _so_ not be a good idea to let Ames partake in her usual shtick of Guerrero-baiting right now. Though, Chance curiously noted, this was the first time he could recall Ames aggressively facing off against their resident torture expert. She usually just stuck to constant streams of conversation and provocatively childish eye rolls. He glanced at Ilsa and Winston and found his train of thought reflected in their own expressions. It was curious mixture of surprise and morbid fascination. Guerrero and his damned stomach. It was so late, it was early. Chance just wanted to finish the loose ends Winston and Ilsa insisted on going over and then finally get some sleep. He really didn't want to have this conversation with Ames. He had been born under an unlucky star apparently.

Smiling encouragingly, Chance quickly swivelled his chair to face Ames. His sympathy sparked as he eyed the careful way she was sitting, rather than her usual careless sprawl. So Chance quickly broke over her increasingly unintelligible rant, before Guerrero broke something over her instead.

"The call came through late after you left Ames." Chance consoled, "It was fairly straightforward and we all decided it would be a waste of your time to call you back, especially given your injuries." Glancing briefly at Ilsa, he reluctantly returned his focus to Ames and apologised for not 'writing her a post-it'. He didn't feel the need to add that her ribs were more of a convenient excuse to keep her benched than a viable concern. After her fiasco during the last job, Chance had decided that they all needed some time to heal and regroup. After the incident involving the paranoid security specialist, they had all been left tightly strung. Some more so than others, and Ames' recent injury had pushed them all to breaking point. Frankly, he was still sore.

He was relieved when Winston added his own spin on the matter and watched as Ames' expression cleared. Chanced watched as she carefully gauged their sincerity, as Ilsa joined in their assurances that her broken ribs had been their sole concern. And he watched as relief flooded into her eyes. Chance absently shrugged off the guilt of lying to the young thief. It was a good reason to keep her out of the field. It just wasn't the only one. But even as he exchanged a meaningful glance with Ilsa, who started to dismiss them all with a soft smile, he felt Guerrero stirring beside him. Dammit. Chance shut his eyes in defeat as the notion of sleep took a nose dive off the roof. He knew he wouldn't have to wait long for the other shoe to drop. You never did when it came to Guerrero. Chance wasn't the only one still sore.

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Ames smiled brightly at the team. She was incredibly relieved to know that it had been her broken ribs that had kept her sidelined, rather than the way she had broken them. Easing some of the tension she had been carrying all night, Ames tried to hide the relief that was spreading across her body. The same giddy relief that would soon prompt her to make a very, very stupid mistake. Vaguely aware of Ilsa murmuring about finishing up for the morning, and Chance eagerly hopping to his feet, Ames slowly drew her eyes around to Guerreros' face, and began absently categorising his features. She stared lingeringly over his stubble, his lips and the hundred, thousand ways she could keep them occupied. Her eyes caressed a path up his nose and slowly reached his eyes. They were boring straight into hers. She gasped silently, fighting to keep a blush off her face as their eyes locked. Ames shivered under his stare. Burning with energy, with darkness, with secrets and the knowledge that he would get what he wanted, when he wanted it. But it wasn't just the intensity of his eyes that held her captive, lost to the outside world.

It had been a single thrilling flicker. She was drowning in a sea of blue, searching incredulously for that tiny flame that sent jolts straight to her heart. It had been there for maybe a second. Her pulse was pounding and the hair on the back of her neck stood. For one instant, before he could hide it away, Guerrero had been looking at her with something bordering...possession?

She swallowed heavily, her hands trembling. _She could have been wrong._ Giving him the tiniest, softest of smiles, Ames raised her eyebrow and teasingly breathed a question.

"Were you worried about me Guerrero?"

Once more the silence in the room became deafening. The chatter surrounding them died off abruptly as one by one Ilsa, Chance and Winston realised just how monumentally Ames had fucked up. Ames watched with growing dread as those eyes turn blisteringly cold. Her stomach dropped as she instinctively cradled her body. This was going to hurt, but she couldn't look away.

"Of course I was worried. Instead of focusing on my job and my team- I was worrying about you. The dumb ass, bad girl whose stupidity and sheer incompetence on the last job almost got herself and her client killed." Guerreros' harsh words were disturbingly aided by his even tone.

Ames felt her mouth drop wordlessly, as her eyes prickled and the soft hope that had kindled a few seconds ago was decimated by an unrelenting wash of humiliation and pain.

Guerrero continued calmly unabated, "Wake up Ames. We didn't call you because we were worried about your boo boo. We didn't _call_ you, because lately you have been about as useful as a fucking blunt knife- and just as sharp."

Without breaking eye contact, he leaned forward. His unique scent of leather, Old Spice and gasoline drifted over to mix with her misery, as he continued ruthlessly, "This is the bottom line. We didn't _call_ you, because right now we can't trust you to watch our backs and still make it out alive."

He gestured off handily to a red faced Ilsa and a glaring Winston, while still holding her gaze callously. "And the fact you believed their self-indulgent, sugar coated bullshit just goes to show how much of an amateur you really are. So why don't you tell us why you were here JV, and then get your sorry ass home."

Frozen, she couldn't decide which stung more. The insults or the matter of fact tone he had delivered them in. They hit home regardless. Staring into cold blue eyes, _god so mocking_, Ames felt her throat swallowing frantically. Guerrero simply sat back and eyed her nonchalantly. As if he hadn't just slaughtered and buried everything she had worked on for the past year. Her lungs worked overtime to drag in the air that she had lost to his abrupt attack. Frenetically Ames tried to control her emotions, she couldn't let him see the hurt- _pain, misery, anguish_. She slowly stood and reached into her pocket, clenching a scrap of paper in her fist. Cutting off the stream of explanations Ilsa had begun in justification, both for and towards Ames, a tiny scrunched up ball of paper was lobbed over the desk. A stoic Guerrero snatched it from the air. An equally stoic (_please god..._) Ames turned silently and made her way to the door, her body on autopilot as her brain screamed, begged for him to take it all back. She had made a stupid mistake, but they were here _team_. Her place to belong, after being so long on her own...

She was deaf to Ilsas' attempts to explain and shrugged off Wintons' demand for her to turn around. She hardly noticed Chances' telling silence. But as she reached the door and swung it open, she faltered in the doorway, torn. With a bitter smile, Ames turned in the doorway and faced the room. _Never let them see you cry_. Defiantly raising her chin to Guerrero, Ames scathingly delivered her parting shot before sweeping out of the room.

Still following her progress with a curiously blank expression, Guerrero kept hold of that scrap. In something, Chance curiously noted, that could only be called a furiously white-fisted grip.

"Oh, bite me!"

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R & R _"I'm in this condition, and I've got all the symptoms of a broken heart- but you'll never see me cry." _Rihanna


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